Select Local Merchants

Retiring as the Executive Director of the Allegheny Intermediate Unit after spending more than 40 years in education, Dr. Joseph Lagana couldn't resign himself to just wile away his new excess of free time. With firsthand knowledge of the effects of homelessness on the region's schools, Joe funneled his passion and efforts into creating the Homeless Children?s Education Fund, a nonprofit committed to the advocacy, education, and direct assistance of children experiencing homelessness in Allegheny County. Since its beginning as a humble learning center?just three computers in a closet?Homeless Children?s Education Fund has grown to include 11 facilities where children and their parents can access the Internet as well as find much-needed support through emergency shelters and transitional housing.

The Pittsburgh Games takes the limitations of a quirky, one-off race and blows them to smithereens. Rather than just competing in a run or mustache-grooming contest, folks can compete across a wide range of events, including competitions across nine different stations, indoor triathlons, biathlons, obstacle course runs, and other fitness challenges.

The team at Lindy Promotions brings more than just two decades of event-planning experience to the table. In many cases, they also bring the table. The company organizes bar crawls, holiday parties, and other events in East Coast cities such as New York, DC, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta. Their marquee events, which include the Nightmare on M Street, the Irish Stroll, and the Lindy 500 Limo Scavenger Hunt, have drawn thousands of partiers?enough to do the Electric Slide. Even better, the company gives back to the community as evidenced by the more than one million pounds of canned food they've donated and the thousands of dollars they've raised for non-profit organizations.

Doug Crytzer holds the rare distinction of being a professional racer. When a local boy scout troop hired him to organize an adventure race for them, he discovered he loved producing races even more than running them. He founded American Adventure Sports in 1997 to indulge his new passion, while raising awareness of nature's beauty and efforts to preserve it.
Today, AAS, as Doug dubs it, organizes adventure races, triathlons, mountain bike races, and camping trips into American wildernesses across the country. The organization also has a brick and mortar store located in Pennsylvania, where staffers provide athletes with all the gear they need to compete in any of the events or go on an adventure of their own making.

During Race & Seek, an extra phone battery in your pocket could easily be worth thousands of dollars. The urban scavenger hunt sends teams of 2?10 out into city streets in search of 14 clues, which they must capture via photo or video with their smart phones. The first-prize winners haul in some serious bounty: $500 and free entry into the Grand Championship, where $5,000 waits at the finish line.
But a slew of physical and mental challenges stand in the way of that money. Harder and harder clues come in via text and email, and as participants decipher them, they must navigate the city largely on foot?no cars, bikes, taxis, or griffins are allowed?with the aid of GPS and a city map.

A night spent dancing to a DJ at the club burns calories and works up a sweat, so why not put the dance floor on a 5K course? That's exactly what Nocturnal Lands has done?participants run, walk, or dance their way through a race course illuminated by interactive light shows and pumping with electronic dance music from live DJs. After partying through multiple DJ stages, revelers finish at a raucous main-stage after-party. Headliner DJs soundtrack the event on the main stage while participants celebrate crossing the finish line as a member of the Night Nation.